Despite the fact that City Fields Foundation did not intend to create more play fields - they were simply converting grass fields to sbr synthetic turf and adding stadium lighting) -- CFF “Team” members Ginsburg and Hirsch stressed in the "San Francisco Examiner" that the City was in “critical need of additional soccer fields”. In the "San Francisco Chronicle", Ginsburg praised CFF for their generosity and credited their organization with keeping San Francisco parks safe. Ginsburg insisted that the styrene butadiene (SBR) synthetic turf projects are expected to improve the quality of life for San Francisco’s families. He described CFF as being, "absolutely crucial to keeping families healthy and thriving in San Francisco” .

Hannan and Mauer making claims

Hannan played a more antagonistic role. He said, “SBR is the right turf product for this location. They’re [critics] not interested in finding a solution that allows kids to play on these fields. They’re interested in making sure this project doesn’t happen and we think that is going to hurt families and kids in San Francisco.”

Since acres of grass park land were being destroyed, natural grass turf had to be condemned. “Grass cannot be maintained year-round, which makes [synthetic] turf the best alternative, Hannan would claim adding, "If you're going to put grass on an athletic field, you're going to restrict public access."

Ginsburg describes shoddy parks

Rec & Park Department General Manager and CFF “Team” member Ginsburg had a particularly delicate balance to maintain. While he was hard-selling the public on a “need” for the CFF SBR synthetic projects, he was essentially acknowledging his shortcomings as a General Manager of “green” parks. He would describe his grass parks as “dilapidated”. Hannan portrayed them as, "fields of last resort”. Hirsch proposed that the poorly managed grass fields were the primary cause for “families leaving San Francisco”.

9 acre Polo Fields Soccer Complex

Ginsburg must have had to bite his tongue -- because while he was throwing in the towel on maintaining neighborhood grass parks, he was simultaneously rehabilitating the 9 acre grass Polo fields with new grass for soccer players. The City was able to re-sod what is the largest soccer complex in the City -- (plus add drainage and state-of-the-art irrigation) -- with a State grant for only 1 million dollars. This was a fraction of what each CFF project cost and what it was costing the City in tens of millions of dollars in matching funds for CFF projects.

Hirsch mimics dissenter, "blah, blah".

CFF was also found to be aggressively targeting individual critics. People not on-board with their agenda or speaking out about SBR toxicity risks were subject to being accused by CFF supporters at various times of being "crazy", "fear-mongers", or (ironically) "uncaring about children". Hannan was caught stepping the harassment up a notch when he sent out an email with a link to a web site that listed a health care advocate’s family’s personal information as well as a link to where he lived.

Hannan lobbying for CFF

A newspaper editor received the email from Hannan in reference to an interview that the public health care advocate had given his paper about SBR synthetic turf. In the email, Hannan defamed the advocate to the editor -- stating among other things, “You've been had". When confronted, Hannan denied he had sent the email, and only admitted that he had sent it when the email was produced. When the advocate asked Buell, Ginsburg and the Recreation and Park Commission to intervene and address their partner organization’s harassing behavior, he did not receive a single response. The harassment would escalate.